Fading Memories
by a mountain of gideon's scones
Summary: He's never really been sure what to do, or who to love, but she's someone always in his thoughts. AmelieMyrnin. For Evanescence-in-Constantinople.


a/n: this is for Evanescence-in-Constantinople, and it's AmelieMyrnin. I hope you enjoy it, darling, though it's not particularly romantic between the pair of them.

Also, this is written in Myrnin's POV, so it's sort of jumbly and mixed up, on purpose, because he's sort of insane right the way through his life, though I tend to not normally portray this.

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It's never been a romantic relationship between Myrnin and Amelie; she's appreciated him for being eccentric, wild and yet always still a loyal friend, one who would do anything for her, and he's admired the way that she always stands up for what she believes in. Their relationship has been built on her strength and courage, and his ability to think up the most cunning plans to escape adversary, whilst at the same time gaining the advantage over their enemies; he's strong and courageous, naturally, but he always feels slightly overshadowed by Amelie.

She's shining, a star in the sea of mundane humans they are forced to hide in to avoid their enemies – and for food – and he's always found her to be far more beautiful than those _harlots_ who try to claim that they're the most beautiful women on the planet. A woman who doesn't completely understand her beauty is far more perfect and desirable than one who plays on her cleavage and style of clothing, and this is the way that Myrnin has considered Amelie for their entire time together.

He puts up with her controlling attitude, the way that she has to win _everything_, and she helps to calm him down whenever the moods take him, whenever he's turned into a black cloud of oppression and when the desire to kill is greater than the sense that he should lay low. It's like he's a mental patient and she's his nurse, someone to help him understand that he's perfectly fine and safe, that he's got his best friend and that's all that matters, because nothing is going to hurt him.

_He's safe._

Things don't change (_much_) when Oliver joins them; Myrnin still thinks that Amelie is the most beautiful woman in the world who means everything to him, and they're still best friends…it's just, now, there's someone who she can love. Tucked far away in the corner of his heart, he had hoped that she would, one day, see past the _sweetly insane Myrnin_, as she likes to call him, and hopefully love him, allow their life experience together to create beautiful music between the pair of them. He had hoped that there would be a way for their heads to meet, their lips to press together, his dark hair next to her fair, fair, _fair_ head (though not fair like an angel, because there's no way that the fiery streak that runs through Amelie would be present in an _angel_) but no, that dream has been taken from him by Oliver.

He hates him; it's not just for this, but for the brashness of his actions, the way that he's trying to corrupt Amelie to the point that she agrees with everything he wants to do. Myrnin can see that Oliver wants Amelie's power, that she's just a piece in his games and that he wants to destroy her and take her place, though love plays a terrible place in his plan to get there, yet who would believe him? Amelie lets him sit with his chemicals for a reason, allows him to laugh at the idiotic way that Oliver presents himself just so that, when the time comes for real plans and change, he doesn't try and interfere and create a mess that she then has to clean up. With Oliver here, Myrnin feels as though she doesn't remember the days when it was her and him together, sitting with their books, him braiding her hair, she shining his shoes so that he looked like a _gentleman_ when he went out for the kill.

(Things change, and he hates that, and perhaps that's the reason why he hates Oliver…because things have changed and he's powerless to make them go back to the way that they were before.)

There's secret meetings between Oliver and Amelie at night – he can tell because he has near perfect hearing, even with the thicker walls to block out sound for their sensitive ears – and he tries to block out the way that she's telling him he means everything to her, and the way that he reciprocates the feelings, because with each kiss, with each touch, it makes his theory that he's going to try and destroy her more ludicrous. Oliver wouldn't destroy the woman he _loves_, Amelie insists whenever she comes to see Myrnin, which is less and less frequent now, because she doesn't want to start a war between Oliver and Myrnin.

(He knows that, if it came down to it, she would pick Oliver now, and the reason she doesn't want to have a fight is because then she _would_ have to choose. Here, she gets the best of her new lover, and her exotic pet alchemist, the one who adores her more than she could ever know.)

Then comes the precious time when _he's_ proven right, that Oliver wants nothing more than her power, and she can't accept that Myrnin is right, so when she hears, "_I was right, you were wrong_," she can't help but explode.

She throws things, she shouts and screams, blazing anger ripping through her because otherwise it would be tears that threaten to consume her, and Myrnin knows that she can't have that. She's strong, she's victorious against those who try and destroy her, and she's never going to let anyone take her power, not even Myrnin. He wouldn't dare, he wouldn't want her power, yet she's in a state that makes her think that _he's _the biggest threat now that Oliver's gone.

He thinks that she's a fire, something that burns brightly and furiously for as long as it can sustain, destroying anything in its path, but there comes a time when it starts to consume itself. She's burnt through everything she can, destroyed the things that can be combusted in her life, and he's the last obstacle before she can start to implode, like a star, destroying herself until she's nothing of what she used to be.

"Leave me," she spits, and he knows that she means permanently, until she can come to the conclusion that he was right and she was wrong about everything to do with Oliver. "I don't want to see your pathetic face again, do you _understand_?"

He nods slowly and knows that there's no purpose arguing with someone who is on a path of self destruction; he should join her on that, since _feelings_ get him nowhere with her, not at all, and their past means nothing when he thinks about how she's destroying them because of Oliver. There's no chance of Amelie and Myrnin now, none whatsoever, because whenever they meet again, she'll be haunted by their past, by the mistakes she's made, and the only thing she'll recall about him is how _brilliant_ a friend he was.

The mind works in strange and curious ways, even for vampires.

He doesn't see her again in England.

The years pass and he finds himself in London, his name above the laboratory which attracts _all_ the pretty ladies for some reason, most of whom don't leave again. He finds himself comparing his workplace to that of the laboratory in the Robert Browning poem, The Laboratory, something that makes him chuckle every time he considers it, because he _does_ brew poisons in here.

In fact, it's his main trading point.

He does everything he can to forget Amelie, to consider that he's the only vampire in England because something is calling them over to America for some reason. He receives letters in her hand, but he throws them into the fire before he can become curious, because she threw him away, not the other way around, and he desires to live this life without her. It makes the feelings easier to handle, and when he finds someone who believes in everything _he_ does, little miss Ada, he thinks that it's for the best; they would _never _have worked out, he thinks, and that maybe Oliver's purpose was to show them that.

Then intrigue gets the better of him.

He's happy with Ada, far happier than he ever was with Amelie, and so when the next letter arrives, he opens it.

_Dear friend_

_I presume you have been ignoring my past correspondences, something I cannot blame you for; however, I understand I was flawed and I wish to offer my sincerest apologies._

_I have since started building a town for every vampire in the world to reside in, called Morganville, in the deep desert of Texas; you know why I want to build this. Things have been happening with our people, Myrnin, and I feel you, as someone who has always lived on the…_edge_, will understand what to do._

_My best, as always_

_Amelie_

He understands what she means; the sweetly insane Myrnin, the scientist who understands all, will know what to do, what experiments to practise on vampires, whatever this mystery issue is. He knows that she's been vague to spark his interest – she was always good at that, he recognises – and it's worked, because he finds himself packing all his equipment and Ada up, ready to set sail on the first boat across to America next week. Ada understands; all she wants is to be with him, and he thinks that the infatuation he has with her means that eternity with her will bring him all the happiness he wants.

(He just tries his best to not compare it to that happiness Amelie had with Oliver, not that it really matters, because Amelie and Myrnin can never be, he concluded that centuries ago.)

**.**

He doesn't remember most of the next century. It's a blur of missing Ada, regretting everything he did, and understanding everything Amelie felt when Oliver turned against her, because he's disease-stricken, and that makes everything acceptable. He can cry and wail and let loose, and nobody will attack him or tell him to _hush_, as he's underground, in hiding from anyone and anything that could hurt him, though there's nothing left. He killed the one thing he loved, and there's nothing he can do but try and find a cure to the disease to then be able to love her unconditionally for the rest of his life, without his memory being obscured by the disease.

Yet _she_ comes to visit; she tries to make up for pushing him aside, and everything is a blur because one minute her face seems so beautiful and friendly (and reminds him of everything he felt…_feels_) and then it's twisting and mutilating, the disease destroying everything about him. They can hold conversations that make him think that they have a chance together, until then Ada whispers about how Amelie adores _Sam_ now, and that Myrnin doesn't mean anything to her other than being her perfect little alchemist pet.

He's always been that, he just didn't understand the implications of always being on the sidelines until now.

The fire has gone from Amelie, even in the brief moments with him when she's unguarded with him now he's free from the disease and Ada is dead; she's lost Sam, he's lost Ada, and she has the chance to be something with Oliver, but that's not going to happen again – he hopes. His mind is still disorganised and disorientated, a blur of everything that one person could think, but that haphazardness has always been his way, the way that he's viewed life and gotten by – that's what Amelie loved about him. She's all ice now, passionate about nothing but a dead man, and if he thought there was no chance of him and Amelie with _Oliver_ around, the chances have gone through the floor with Sam, because he's her true love…like Ada was his, he thinks, Sam was Amelie's and nothing could ever match up to that.

He tries kissing Claire, tries to move on by kissing the girl he works with because that's how he fell in love with Ada, and this is perhaps how Amelie and Oliver were _really_, because there's a spark, but she won't be everything to him, as science was linked with Ada, really, and Ada will always be in his heart. Amelie will be as well, but he can't really comment on that since they never even shared a kiss, let alone a carnal relationship, something he sort of regrets, but doesn't at the same time.

It makes the jumbled, faded memories of the past not hurt as much as they would, as she would never have accepted him now that she's infatuated with Sam's memory, would she?

He still tries to impress her, and it reaches the point that he has to prove her wrong, prove that he doesn't run from_ everything_ like he always did, and now he's here, in the fight club building with his contraption, and there's the chance to destroy Bishop. He can destroy her Father, prove that he's more than he ever was before, and he does it; he doesn't just do it to prove Amelie wrong, as she stands with Oliver, but to prove to himself that he's _more_ than just someone who needs love. He can survive fine without a woman, though Claire pleases him more than he thought she ever could, but destroying the past always helps to clear the path forwards in his life.

So he destroys Bishop, and with the disintegrating body goes everything Myrnin has ever felt for Amelie or Ada or anything other than the present; guilt is something that ought to stay in the past, he thinks bitterly, and that perhaps now he can consider living his life the way he would have done if he had never loved Amelie. Insanity still lines his mind, the jumbled mess causing everything to have hidden meanings and different analogies to the point that he could be making perfect sense, yet Claire won't understand him, but he understands himself enough to know that he doesn't need Amelie.

He doesn't need to love her, not anymore.

(The only issue is that when she sees him killing her Father, she understands that she's been wrong about him all this time, that she's the coward, not him, and that they could have had something greater than anyone could understand…but she ruined it.)

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a/n2: i'd appreciate it if you didn't favourite/read without reviewing. thank you.

Vicky xx


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